OKLAHOMA CITY – Kobe Bryant came toward the ball just the way he had in the Lakers’ previous inbounds attempt that was denied and left Steve Blake to call a timeout.

This time, though, he stopped and doubled back the other way to run away from the ball while Pau Gasol stepped in to screen Thabo Sefolosha away from Bryant.

It’s the same play the Lakers ran to get Bryant a fading but open shot at the end of a regular-season game in New Orleans. He missed that one, but would he miss this one with a ton of redemption for late-game mistakes, probably this whole playoff series and maybe his best chance at that sixth championship ring on the line?

We will never know, because Metta World Peace – the most openly ardent Kobe lover on this Lakers’ roster – was the inbounds passer this time, and he chose not to risk the long cross-court pass over 6-foot-10 leaper Serge Ibaka’s head toward Bryant.

It was actually a sensible decision by World Peace, one of very few the Lakers made in the final two minutes of this catastrophic meltdown Wednesday night in Oklahoma City. World Peace saw Russell Westbrook’s head turned toward Bryant and Andrew Bynum in the paint while Blake jumped free behind Westbrook into the nearest corner. And before Bryant could even begin to outrun Ibaka to the open space on the other side of the court, Blake was getting the ball.

The problem is that Blake, despite hitting the dagger 3-pointer in Denver to give the Lakers a 3-1 series lead, has rarely converted shots on the road in his two seasons as a Laker. He is, in fact, 42 percent on 3-pointers at home and just 29 percent on the road – and he missed this one, too.

Unfair as it is to second-guess and unrealistic as it is to believe the Lakers’ life would’ve come down to the same play if he’d never been traded, Derek Fisher looks pretty good right now with Bryant and Blake shooting a combined 1 for 11 to Fisher’s 1 for 2 on 3-pointers in this game. Even worse, confidence-losing Ramon Sessions – hyped as budding leader by Lakers coach Mike Brown a month ago – had to be yelled at by Brown during while en route to a 2-for-10 start to this series: “Shoot it!”

And make no mistake: It was Derek Fisher who was in the very same position on the court as Blake assumed when the Lakers ran the very same set play earlier this season for Bryant.

It’s a play that Grantland’s Sebastian Pruiti identifies as pulled right out of the playbook of San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, who Brown’s mentor. If things go differently on that play, maybe this column is a lyrical piece about how Bryant’s legend is still growing with the help of fresh ideas from Brown and the shrewd mind of Popovich, who isn’t Phil Jackson but Kobe also respects to no end.

The Lakers can take solace in nearly winning this game as opposed to blowing a seven-point lead in the last two minutes, and Bryant tried to do that – focusing on the defensive adjustments that worked so well.

But this is the way it works in the NBA playoffs, incredibly close games decided by one make or miss at the end and a series of small missteps or strong moves before that. The guys who believe they’re going to win invariably make more of those moves than those missteps, and so the Thunder won this game the same way they won the first one in blowout fashion:

Because they expected to win.

Instead of working even harder to finish Game 2 off, the Lakers let up with their lead – almost relieved to have had things work out for them. When James Harden and Kevin Durant kept coming instead of surrendering, Bryant and the Lakers buckled under the added pressure – the same way the veteran but uncertain Dallas Mavericks did last round in Oklahoma City.

“It was just flat-out risk,” Bryant said of the Thunder’s late-game defensive daring that turned the game its way.

Well, as Bryant knows well, there’s no reward without risk. He built his mighty tower only by digging himself an epic hole with those long-ago air balls that he dared to attempt in Utah.

Flat-out risk? That means the Thunder is playing to win, and that’s why this has become next to impossible for the Lakers.

Even if the Thunder’s last gambles hadn’t paid off in Game 2, it was still easy to see Games 3, 5 and 6 going Oklahoma City’s way.

Even if the Lakers stand strong now and take Games 3 and 4 at home, it’s still easy to see the Thunder rolling in Games 5 and 6.

Bryant has been saying this season that the Lakers are a championship-caliber team with a small margin for error.

Perhaps that slight doubt creeping into his usually so-optimistic mind contributed to his own late-game unsteadiness Wednesday night. Just as in life, the most certain and most assertive tend to succeed.

You don’t have to be perfect – and those were actually the exact words that Thunder coach Scott Brooks put to his team in the huddle, even when they were down by seven with two minutes left. But if you are already thinking you have a small margin for error, you are far more likely to get tight and not get tough.

Given that, even if World Peace throws a perfect cross-court pass to Bryant for that last shot, it’s hard to envision it going in.